Lisa T – Nice to Meet You… Again

It really is nice to hear Lisa T again, over a year after her last single ‘Easy Love’. ‘Nice to Meet You… Again’ marks her debut EP, and its one which follows a similar pattern. Combining the acoustic with techno-pop to create a record that is as broad as Country gets.

It starts with an Irish twist. ‘This Country Song’ drawing on Lisa T’s roots to bring out the foot-stomping energy of that found in many a Friday night bar. Mixed in with splashes of feel-good pop, this audience-ready song really is an invitation to “let go / get on down”, whether line dancing or otherwise. ‘Mr Know It All’ continues likewise, with a punchy arrangement adorned with playful saxophone. There is an ‘80s feel to the music, whilst Lisa T’s vocals add strength and depth a la Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. The bridge in particular is wonderfully constructed, teasing the song’s protagonist in both its music and lyrics to great effect.

‘Want You to Stay’ then lends itself to a dramatic drop in tone. The production stripped back to just an acoustic guitar and vocal so pronounced that it sounds like a live recording. It pairs well with ‘Stop Lovin Me’, whose electro-beats add a seductive Soul to a narrative of push-and-pull. “You make it too hard to leave” an illustration of both tracks’ description of relationships in which breakups feel necessary, though not quite so easy to do in reality.

The EP then finishes with the title track. Its violins creating a deceptive intro, smashed within a few seconds by an electric guitar of intent. Country-Rock in all its swagger. Communicating a purpose hell-bent on being known. The lines “you didn’t think I got what it takes / here I am now singing my song / bet I can get you singing along” looking to prove someone wrong. And if anyone had any doubt in Lisa T’s ability then this will most certainly put them to rights.

A record that really does shine a light on her talent.

You can purchase ‘Nice to Meet You… Again’ from Lisa T’s online store here, or stream it here.

Featured Image (C) Lisa T

Two Ways Home – She Keeps Time Like a Casio

Can you spot yourself in the latest single from Two Ways Home? You’re either like the timekeeper of the track’s title or the latecomer scorned by their punctuality. I most definitely identify with the latter. Except I don’t make the kind of excuses that the person on ‘She Keeps Time Like a Casio’ does. Placing atop its guilt-ridden Americana, the account of “a crash back on the A40” when, really, they “just lost track of time”. The song then plays with this false storytelling to become a confession but also a reflection. On self. The other. The relationship between two very different personalities. Isi’s voice lending a beautiful sincerity to the question of how much one should change to accommodate expectations. The line “if I’m not early then I’m tempting fate / if I’m on time then I’m already late” expressing a defeatist dilemma that calls for honest self-expression in the end. Which is why I always tell people openly that my time may not be their time. But hopefully, somewhere, we find a happy medium.

Featured Image (C) Two Ways Home

Taynee Lord – Back to the Country

Taynee Lord’s latest single reminds me of why an opportunity to move to the city a couple of years ago was worth turning down. For, against a backdrop of country-pop-rock, she pines to move ‘Back to the Country’. Her motives make sense – more affordable housing, closer connections – but these positives fail to outweigh the negatives of urban life. Noise at all hours. Traffic jams. Surrounded by concrete. No wonder she longs for better. “People can’t even crack a smile”, she observes, with “trees here and there to reconcile” proving ultimately fruitless. It really is an anthem for country living. With a subtle commentary on the difficulties of making this a reality, especially for the younger generation. For we’re not all made of the kind of money seen on Escape to the Country. Though like Taynee on this catchy track, we can at least dream.

Featured Image (C) Taynee Lord

Bergendahl – Cottagecore Country

Bergendahl is one of a few new names that have come across my path in 2025. Sitting somewhere between pop and folk on the spectrum of Country Music, her latest EP ‘Cottagecore Country’ presses firmly into the ballad.

Opening song ‘Black Fog’ is much more stylised in the mould of acoustic guitar, ideal for a narrative of self-exploration. Its emotional subject matter could have proved heavy in another guise. But through lyrical simplicity, and a vocal reverb that adds a contemporary shine, there is a lightness of touch. The effect opens up her personal headspace, allowing the listener in to properly empathise.

Second track ‘Paintbox Flowers’ then goes through a process from pedal steel dreaminess to power ballad anguish. The title’s wonderfully floral overtones spill into a set of lyrics infused with bright pastel colours that become whitewashed in a haze of questions. It really does tug on the heartstrings. ‘Amsterdam’, which follows, providing quiet relief in a stripped back production that carries like a breeze.

The third track is a beautiful tribute to that infamous city. Contrasting sun-baked resorts and Alpine excursions with a down-to-earth homeliness. Wider themes of identity and wellbeing feed into a portrait of loveliness in which “the problems I’m nursing… hurt less / in a place that’s so pretty”. Never has being “out of my mind in this city” held such positive connotations.

Final track ‘Woodpigeon’ continues the balladeering nature of this EP. The ending of a relationship that represents new-found freedom soaring on an uplifting melody of joyous percussion and delighted strings. As with her musicality, Bergendahl incorporates the confidence of Twinnie with the vulnerability of Lisa Redford to create a record that is totally at ease with itself. A testament to her own strength of personality and honesty in her artistry.

Featured Image (C) Bergendahl

Bethany Barrie – Been Here Before

If the name Bethany Barrie is unfamiliar, it shouldn’t be for long. This Scottish singer-songwriter is a recent discovery for me, and her latest single has made me a fan. ‘Been Here Before’ incorporates a recognisably Celtic sound. Its positive percussion and uplifting violin playing to a message of reassurance. She goes through the emotional journey of life, charting its ups and downs with the central theme caught in the breath of the bridge – “we got through this back then / we’ll get through it again”. A reminder that perseverance is required, for the highs don’t last and sometimes we’re not as fine as we could be. Such encouragement is wrapped in the kind of Country-Folk that is having a moment. And like her compatriot, Rianne Downey, Bethany Barrie conveys her story in an engaging and congenial way.

Featured Image (C) Bethany Barrie

Katy Hurt – Rather Be

Hot on the heels of Annie Dressner’s song comes another from Katy Hurt. ‘Rather Be’ is a fitting companion to the former’s ‘For the Thrill of It’ – both tackling the subject of misogyny in the music industry with candour and irony. The approach is classic Katy. The sound a mix of country, blues and rock, slowly building to a high energy performance that rips through its subject. The lyrics cleverly subversive and constantly playful. Three moments in particular stand out. The first, her response to words like “blondie” and “cutie-pie” with the expression “eww”. The second, a delightful plot twist, in which “I can’t wait for you to ask me to tie the knot… not!” And the third comes at the song’s end when, having laid bare her preference for anything other than this man’s affections, she literally slams a door in his proverbial face. It is all very ingeniously written, told in Katy’s own inimitable style. Having gone quite introspective with recent singles ‘Seasons’ and ‘Oh Girl’, it’s nice to see her back, in this case bringing down the “Mr Persistent[s]” of this world, with her dry wit and spirited humour.

Featured Image (C) Katy Hurt

Joe Martin – Strangers to Lovers

These are exciting times for Joe Martin. ‘Strangers to Lovers’ is the first single off his next album, and it promises much. Since I last saw him live, the Lancashire singer-songwriter has honed his craft. Pushing into a troubadour identity of which this song is representative. An acoustic rendering in part influenced by his producer, James Wyatt. It gives the theme of lost love a raw edge. A bittersweet sadness shot throughout. Culminating in the final chorus line, “We went from strangers to lovers / and back to strangers again”. This is storytelling at its most basic. But in the vocal, Joe Martin imbues it with emotional depth. The result, like the rest of his set at the British Music Experience last week, is quietly captivating.

Featured Image (C) Joe Martin

Annie Dressner – For the Thrill of It

Annie Dressner is not a new name to me. But her music is. And as with Demi Marriner, I wonder why it’s taken so long for her songs to land in my ear. For her latest release led me straight to her back catalogue. To a fabulously folky 2024 album which new single ‘For the Thrill of It’ builds on. Here, the subject matter belies its boppy exterior. The prevalence of misogyny brought to task through a series of images that question its legality. She does so in a very Kacey Musgraves way – through humour and irony, but against a backdrop of punkish pop. A protest song for the 21st Century.

Featured Image (C) Annie Dressner

Ar y Ffin – S4C

It was Newport’s time to shine in S4C’s latest drama series Ar y Ffin. Made much of in a Guardian article prior to broadcast, the city is often overlooked by its capital cousin, but becomes a metaphor here for the title character’s own story. Erin Richards is superb as Claire Lewis Jones, a magistrate and mother who has tried, with a great degree of success, to step out of the shadow of her unsavoury past. Yet she is still haunted by a ghost, in the form of Pete Burton (played by Tom Cullen), a shady local gangster whose criminal activities come slowly to collide with Claire’s personal and professional life across the course of six episodes. And whilst at times there are threads in the narrative which suggest too much artistic licence has been wrought, writers Georgia Lee and Hannah Daniel still offer enough entertaining twists and turns to ensure the implausible never make Ar y Ffin unwatchable.

One of the draws of this drama is the mother-daughter relationship at its centre. Lauren Morais is excellent as troubled teen Beca, whose trajectory of travel is, we come to find out, much like her mother’s was back in the day. The way that Claire seeks to protect her, sometimes at great personal and professional cost, is made all-the-more heartfelt by Richards steely portrayal. She follows in a long line of similar female protagonists in Welsh TV drama, balancing a strong exterior with a hidden vulnerability that eeks out as the series progresses. Beca is much the same, though Morais adds a stubborn teenage bolshiness to mask her susceptibility. Ultimately, both characters cast a shadow of weakness over their respective partners – husband Al (Matthew Gravelle) burying his head in the sand over financial problems whilst Beca’s boyfriend Sonny softens towards the series’ end.

There is clearly appetite from the production team to continue Ar y Ffin. Its conclusion feels far too open to simply leave it at that. Where it goes from here is open to question, but with Beca clearly emerging as a central character alongside her mother Claire, further exploration of that relationship would prove invaluable to keep viewers’ interest beyond the standard criminal fare of Pete and his boys. That might involve a trip over the border perhaps, given the final scene. But whether this drama expands beyond or keeps Newport as its central focus, it has been refreshing to see a different Welsh city as a backdrop. A reminder that urban stories are not limited to Cardiff.

You can watch the series on BBC iPlayer here.

Originally written for and published on Get the Chance on February 5th 2025.

Nia Wyn – A Pleasure to Have in Class

It’s always a pleasure listening to the music of Nia Wyn. Her truth is worn with such beautiful honesty. None more so than on her debut album, ‘A Pleasure to Have in Class’. The Welsh singer-songwriter seems to have finally settled on her sound. Confidence brimming on a record that oozes with Jazz and Soul. Mixed with RnB, it amalgamates old and new, modern and contemporary, 60s through to now, to create an enthralling listen.

All these elements are on show right from the opening track. ‘Start Again’ one of several songs on which the musical arrangement soars into a dawning sky. Here carrying a message of how love can transform us. An act of self-reflection that Nia Wyn is an expert at. It’s what makes a track like ‘Paranoid’ so much more affecting. Bringing her personal experience (of mental health in this instance) to bear on a narrative where authenticity meets complexity. The swirling saxophone at the song’s end representing both frustration and freedom.

Part of Nia Wyn’s truth comes from this wrestling with identity. The title track reveals this most acutely, through lyrics which lay bare the façade behind which her true self has been hidden. Undertaken against a retro backdrop of Motown-inspired Soul, the clarity of her self-awareness, particularly in the second verse, is to be much admired. Like listening in to the conclusion of a therapy session. The chorus lines only underline this sense of false appearance, on an album that blossoms elsewhere as she casts it off and finds herself.

‘Your Team’ is a wonderful anthem for the queer community. Pressing again into first-hand experience of the assumptions made in our heteronormative society. She tackles the patriarchal view of (female) bodies with a frankness channelled through Philadelphia Soul. The result is an unapologetic appraisal. An unashamed celebration. Paired with the powerful political message of ‘It’s My Business’, this is where the heart of Nia Wyn is expressed most profoundly. Unafraid to call out the truth. In both senses of the word.

Tucked in between is the fabulous ‘Nothing Good (Ever Comes From Dreaming)’, an almost-psychedelic vibe merging with contemporary jazz to evoke the spirit of Amy Winehouse. The trumpet communicating a touch of melancholy. Infused with a poetic realism:

“I don’t want to close my eyes / because when the sun rises / I’m terrified”

When it comes down to it, Nia Wyn remains a storyteller at heart. Final track ‘Blue Grey Eyes’ stripping back to just her and the acoustic guitar. The Country/Gospel vibes something of a surprise after the dominant genres that come before. Rather than being out of place however, it feels like the perfect way to round off an album punctuated by the sounds of the past yet rooted in the urban present. The culmination of a journey where she has found both herself and her sound.

You can purchase a copy of ‘A Pleasure to Have in Class’ from Nia’s Bandcamp page here. She will be touring the album later in the year, dates for which can be found here.

Featured Image (C) Nia Wyn